The control over New York City’s waterfront by the NYC Economic Development Corp. (EDC) has come under criticism for its handling of marine infrastructure and maritime industries. As Zohran Mamdani prepares to take office as Mayor, there is a growing call for him to reclaim oversight from the EDC, reinstating a specialized maritime planning and management entity as was the norm throughout the city’s history.
Since its inception in 1991, the EDC was tasked with managing and developing the city’s waterfront under a maritime contract. However, its real estate development focus has been linked to the decline of essential marine infrastructure and the weakening of the maritime industry, both vital for the city’s economic future, environmental sustainability, and emergency readiness.
- Manhattan Cruise Terminal
In a significant move in 1998, the EDC acquired the Manhattan Cruise Terminal’s (MCT) four piers from Hudson River Park. A decade later, two of these piers were leased to Vornado Realty for a convention center complex. While activities were limited to Pier 94, Pier 92 remained underutilized and was deemed unsafe by a 2019 city inspection. Despite Vornado halting rent payments, claiming maintenance was EDC’s responsibility, the company was permitted in 2023 to construct a movie studio on Pier 94, sparking opposition from local communities and elected officials.
EDC’s promise to enhance and electrify Pier 90 in 2023 has faced delays, as the corporation announced plans for a multi-billion-dollar expansion of the MCT. This project aims to eliminate Pier 90 while extending Piers 88 and 92 to host massive cruise ships carrying 7,000 passengers, a move contrary to bans on such vessels in cities like Amsterdam and Venice. Notably, EDC has yet to secure the necessary congressional approval for pier extensions, potentially delaying the project by two years.
- Staten Island’s North Shore
On Staten Island’s North Shore, EDC’s redevelopment efforts were less than successful. The 2005 proposal to transform maritime sites near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal into a shopping mall and the world’s largest observation wheel ended with the $590 million wheel project being scrapped. Furthermore, EDC reports that only half of the mall is currently occupied.
The rezoning of working waterfronts in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Long Island City spurred residential growth, prompting private ferry operators to extend their services. In 2015, EDC launched NYC Ferry, mimicking local operators’ models and vessels. Yet, the operation was entrusted to a Californian company, which was contracted to run 19 newly constructed city-owned ferries with public subsidies.
A city comptroller’s audit reported that EDC failed to account for $224 million spent to initiate the service, and by 2019 their proposed $6.60/passenger subsidy became $10.73. EDC maintained regular ferry schedules during COVID-19 and subsidies rose to $14.57/passenger by 2022. The private company operating NYC Ferry declared bankruptcy in 2024.
EDC recently announced a $15 two-day unlimited NYC Ferry pass competing with private maritime tour operators who pay living wages, lease public property, and generate payroll and sales taxes. Why should city taxpayers subsidize tourists?
For 20 years, EDC talked about moving freight on our waterways to reduce the truck traffic clogging our city streets, deteriorating infrastructure, and fouling our air.
This September, EDC announced a $3.4 billion plan to redevelop the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) as a Blue Highway hub to transport produce and packages by water. However, they traded “as is” the 187-acre, state-of-the-art, city-owned container port at Howland Hook in Staten Island, for the Port Authority’s 122-acre BMT with millions in deferred maintenance.
The Port Authority was required to keep BMT in working order. Yet EDC failed to recover deferred funding and used BMT’s deterioration as rationale to employ a state General Project Plan (GPP) to sidestep public review and approvals. EDC’s BMT redevelopment budget includes hundreds of millions in unrelated expenses, yet major commitments in Atlantic Terminal’s GPP never materialized.
The Mamdani administration should establish a professional maritime development, management, and construction entity that assumes EDC’s maritime contract, but with greater public accountability. A not-for-profit Maritime Development Corp. (MDC) led by experienced professionals who understand operations, the challenges of in-water construction and opportunities to grow our maritime industry.
MDC would celebrate our maritime heritage, redevelop maritime industrial areas, streamline public waterfront construction and maintenance, improve workforce development, contribute to resiliency and emergency preparedness, and grow commercial maritime industries through public/private partnerships.
The Harbor and the Erie Canal made New York City an economic powerhouse. Our waterways can once again stimulate economic growth by moving packages, produce, building material and people in a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and environmentally beneficial manner.
Fox is a Worldwide Ferry Safety Association board member. He was a founding partner of New York Water Taxi and president of Interferry, an international trade association.
